You try to move quickly to pick up your sword, but your arms, legs, face and back hurt like you have just been mating a troll. You return your focus to the mundane world and try to mimic Aethelwine's stance; low, legs apart, sword in front of you rather than waving off to the side. He attacks, and you focus on mirroring and predicting his movements. It is brutal and quickly exhausting, especially in your legs, but you realise that his sword can only really cover half of his body at a time; left, right, top, bottom or middle. You pretend to leave a gap open in your defence and as he takes it you manage to just graze the side of his thigh - but you overextend and start to fall over. He gently taps you at the base of the spine, signalling another death.
Aethelwine stands back from you, resting the tip of his practice sword in the muddy ground.
"Dead again," he remarks, but glances at the very faint scuff mark on his trouser thigh.
"Still, I bet Pip you couldn't touch me in three rounds, so I suppose I had better pay the forfeit and train you, at least until you give up.
"And give up you will," he says, staring at you with ice-blue eyes.
"I am sure you have dreams of becoming a great wizard now. Abandon those dreams at once. There is no reason to suppose that Harold will pick an uneducated runt over an apprentice who can read, has been working his way through books at the same rate the fat little bastard eats, and can already cast his first spell, from what Tostig tells me. Take what learning you can in this year, as you will need it when you are ejected back into the world, but do not fool yourself that you will become a magician of any great consequence.
"Not, of course, that this matters to me. I will be gone in a year regardless, and free to make - well, it does not concern you. Your first lesson is simple. Copy my stance." He demonstrates the stance he took before, very low with one foot forward and one foot between forty-five to ninety degrees outward. You copy the stance as best as you can and then Aethelwine stands up and hits your legs in places with his practice sword.
"Lower. Put that foot out more. Lower. Don't try and bend that all the way out. Lower! Imagine you're sitting on a horse, and that the horse is bearing some of your weight? Good? Now, raise your sword hand up, no, not over your head, forward in front of you like this. Yes, now keep the sword pointing out and where your enemies eyes will be. What, are their eyes in their stomachs? Higher! Now, keep it there. Your other hand, raise it up over your head. No, not like you're asking a question, it's a flourish! Curve your arm a little, let it counterbalance the sword arm. Right, and put your fingers like this. Got it?
"Now, stay like that for half an hour, and then you can swap the positions of your legs and repeat for another half hour."You stare at him incredulously.
"You want to learn how to fight? Learn how to stand. Now get on with it."He watches you for a solid five minutes, then enters the tower. You hold position, although your legs and arms are beginning to burn. Just as you consider letting them relax, Aethelwine returns with a chair and a large book. He sits down some distance to the side of you and opens the book, reading and periodically looking up at you and shouting corrections to your stance, the most common of which is
"Don't rise, get yourself lower!" and the second most of which is
"Don't let those hands drop, your sword needs to be pointing at their eyes, not their cock!"After an eternity of torment, you are permitted to switch legs, keeping your arms in position whilst you do so. They feel locked in some sort of harness of agony. After a few more corrections, Aethelwine returns to his book and lets you continue standing.
Two more eternities pass, and you think you can see white spots in your vision. You really should have eaten more this morning, and the fainter you get the more shouted
"Higher!" or
"Lower!" you get.
"Alright, that's enough. Relax."Your entire body sags and you collapse in a heap on the floor.
"Get back up, you lazy sod, we're not finished."You reluctantly drag yourself to your feet, every part of your body aching.
"Now, follow my movements and repeat them. Don't lag about, keep up with me."Aethelwine begins a series of strange movements, rotations of the various joints and sockets of his limbs, of his neck and hips, followed by several actions to stretch out your muscles. It hurts horribly, but not nearly as bad as what you have just undergone. When you finish you still feel in agonising pain, but it has dulled from white hot torment to a dull, permeating ache that you can feel in your jaw.
"Do that every morning before our work and then again afterwards. I will not repeat myself, so I hope you have memorised the order. Now get off to your tasks, you are late."You stumble away, the various tasks of the day passing in a haze of pain and more pain. When you eventually reach Pip in the library for your spell tuition, you want nothing more than to drop into one of the library's comfortable chairs.
The comfortable chairs are in fact taken, by Aethelwine (in a fine grey coat and cravat), an unfamiliar man with bushy black hair and a thick beard in a blue coat with a charcoal waistcoat and a particularly lacy grey cravat, busy puffing on a pipe, and Master Harold swirling a nearly empty goblet of amber liquid. You freeze, and Aethelwine looks up at you with an expression of naked anger, whilst Harold raises an eyebrow in irritation. You awkwardly excuse yourself and close the doors. There is a snapping sound from within, and you open them again a crack.
"More brandy," says Master Harold languidly, and then returns to conversation with the stranger. You bow slightly, dismissed, and leave for the kitchens to get some brandy, returning with a heavy glass decanter you fill from the cask in the buttery. You enter with a little more grace, silently move to the table and place the decanter, refilling the two empty snifters on the table. You seem to remember hearing once that you should only fill them to about a third, so you do so.
"I shouldn't be terribly concerned," you overhear Master Harold saying to the stranger.
"If this has been happening in the Koggreich I have no doubt that the Kaiser's mages will take care of it.""Assuming it stays in the 'reich, Harry," says the man in the blue coat.
"I am strongly considering a move to Trondheim." He leans forward, raising his hand in gesticulation, and even with your current blunted sense you cannot help noticing the
ring on his finger.
"You are completely overreacting, Karl, you should - Ah. We will not require anything further."You suddenly realise that you have been standing there listening, decanter stopper in your hand. You nod and quickly stopper the decanter, then leave the room. You catch sight of Pip down the hallway.
"Ah! The Master wanted to entertain in the library today, we're in his study."You hurry down the hallway and enter the same study where you first spoke with your fellow apprentices when you arrive. You drop unceremoniously into one of the two leather chairs, actually sobbing with relief from the constant physical exhaustion and pain and Pip draws a coffee table in between you, placing down a small, ordinary, perfectly mundane pebble on the surface.
"So before we begin to learn this rather simple form of telekinesis - that is, the movement of objects without apparently touching them - I would like to know how you think you could accomplish the feat, given what you already know."Focus: 3/Day
Mana: 5/Day
Spells
Witchsight: 1 Focus (no components, sharpens magical sense at the expense of slightly blunting physical senses)
Flavours
Mana.
Fire.
Air.
Aether.
Earth.
Water.
Life.
Destruction.
Preservation.
Skills
Novice Farrier
Novice Groom
Dabbling Chemist
Dabbling Metalworker
Dabbling Swordsman
Author
Topic: Apprentice [TSG] (Read 11106 times)